The 2013 Sci-Tech Awards Honor 25 of Cinema’s Under-the-Radar Geniuses
Oscar night is rife with drama: red-carpet arrivals, teary-eyed acceptance speeches, shocking upsets, and the exultant moment when the team behind the Best Picture of the year rushes the stage. But two weeks before any of this occurs, there is a quieter event—the Academy’s Sci-Tech Awards—where many of the industry’s behind-the-scenes geniuses are recognized for their invaluable contributions to film.
They don’t deliver monologues, cry on command, or gain vast amounts of weight to play against type;
A Q&A With A Good Day to Die Hard Cinematographer Jonathan Sela
At the ripe old age of 34, Jonathan Sela has turned his childhood passion of shooting films in Israel into a big time Hollywood career. As the cinematographer on A Good Day to Die Hard, Sela was reunited with director John Moore (they worked on The Omen and Max Payne together) to film the fifth installment of an action franchise that has spanned 25-years and grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.
How Would Lubitsch Do It? A Valentine’s Day Ode to the Classic Rom-Com
It’s Valentine’s Day, which means there’s a good chance you and your special someone might want to catch the latest lighthearted romantic comedy—but right now, there’s not much out that qualifies as such. Sure there is Silver Linings Playbook and Warm Bodies, two recent (and well executed) genre twists on the rom-com, but “light hearted” they are not. The former, up for 8 Academy Awards, is wonderful but dark,
He Builds It, Audiences Come: A Q&A With A Good Day to Die Hard Production Designer Daniel Dorrance
Production designer Daniel Dorrance’s career has been something of a monster movie carnival. That’s not to say he’s worked exclusively on movies about monsters, but rather almost exclusively on giant, sprawling epics. He’s been responsible for the creation of massive sets and managing huge departments while answering to some of the heaviest of heavy weight directors. Those directors include Steven Spielberg (Hook, Saving Private Ryan), Francis Ford Coppola (Dracula),
Making his Mark: From Fake Tattoos to Ghastly Wounds, Meet Oscar Winning Makeup & SFX Guru Christien Tinsley
You may not know Christien Tinsley by name, but if you've seen American Horror Story, Sons of Anarchy, The Passion of the Christ or Gangster Squad, you've seen his work. A fan of fantasy and monster movies since he was a young boy growing up outside of Seattle, Tinsley is now a king in the biz: a well-regarded makeup and prosthetic artist and owner of Tinsley Studio and TinsleyTransfers,
Look + Listen: The 2013 Grammys’ Film-Centric Nominees
While the film world braces for the onslaught of all-Oscars ephemera, we salute The Grammys for honoring one of the best unions in cinema: great movies and excellent music.
Please stop for a moment to ponder a time when movies were exclusively silent. No dialogue. No score. No foley. Just the thought makes us wince—and not because we can’t appreciate a good silent film once in a while. Rather, the realms of audio and visual seem to have been intrinsically born as one,
Rock ‘N Roll Makeup Artistry: Getting to Know The Walking Dead’s Jake Garber
Jake Garber isn’t just an Oscar-nominated makeup artist; he’s a zombie guru who makes his living transforming ordinary people into Walkers on The Walking Dead with the critically acclaimed special effects crew, KNB EFX. A self-ascribed rock-n-roller, Garber has an acute predilection for crafting special effects makeup in sci-fi and horror titles, having had a hand in nearly every genre out there.
Donning his work uniform—a weathered leather jacket,
We Are Living in a Star Wars Universe
The film world was riveted with the news that J.J. Abrams, perhaps the most logical successor to George Lucas for the Star Wars franchise, would direct Star Wars: Episode VII. As it’s been widely (and breathlessly) reported, Abrams has already successfully rebooted a space franchise with the release his 2009 Star Trek, which was a critical and commercial success.
Abrams admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he was more of Star Wars fan growing up.
Persistence, Pluck and Luck: Filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton Gets it Done
Four adopted girls scattered throughout America share one commonality: they were all adopted from China because the country’s "One Child Policy" put their parents in an impossible situation. Twelve men and women become the first-ever senior citizen hip-hop dance team in the country, performing at center court for the (then) New Jersey Nets. South Africa, among other nations, begins a co-production with the American children’s program Sesame Street to bring the beloved show to them,
How do you Make a Zombie a Sex Symbol? We Speak With Warm Bodies Writer/Director Jonathan Levine to Find out
It’s no easy to task to make a zombie palatable (let alone credible) as a love interest in a film. Yet, that’s exactly what writer/director Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) has done with Warm Bodies, which he adapted from the Isaac Marion novel of the same name. The film centers around the budding paranormal romance between a zombie named R (Nicholas Hoult) and a kick-ass young woman named Julie (Teresa Palmer),
Mommy Issues: Making Monsters with Mama Visual Effects Supervisor Aaron Weintraub
A father kills his wife and brings his two young daughters to a secluded cabin where his would-be murder/suicide attempt is foiled by one very maternal ghost. Years later, the girls are discovered, their feral upbringing posing the second biggest obstacle to a normal life behind a spirit that, to put it mildly, has become a bit possessive.
Mama may not be the feel-good hit of the new movie year, but it may be its most pleasant surprise,
A Meditation on Film Festivals: Unraveling Cinema’s Time-Tested Tradition
Sundance is, sadly, drawing to a close. For the last two weeks, the world of film has gone appropriately haywire with around-the-clock coverage of one of the most well recognized film festivals on earth.
One needn’t look farther than a film-trade addled Twitter feed to find first hand dispatches from ultra-exclusive parties, critics weighing in on their favorite new films, and gossip mills aflutter with what ‘it’ stars are wearing whilst gallivanting around Park City,
A Q&A With Tugg Co-Founder and Terrence Malick Producer & Collaborator, Nicolas Gonda
Nicolas Gonda has had the kind of career that can inspire jealousy if it weren’t for the fact that gumption, hard work, and commitment were the elements he brought to bear to make it all happen.
As a student at NYU, he interned at Focus Features, where he became involved in Academy Award winning films such as The Pianist and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The Queen of Casting: Meet Emmy Award Winning Casting Director & Baltimore Legend Pat Moran
The plight of the casting director is well known to people who follow the industry—they are crucial, they are highly skilled, and they are almost comically overlooked when it comes to having their contributions to filmmaking recognized (the TV world is, however, more egalitarian—they are honored at the Emmys). The gap between their worth to the films they work on and the respect they receive has generated pieces from the likes of Deadline.com and The Wrap, who wonder why the work of such critical collaborators,
A Q&A With one of Iceland’s Premiere Filmmakers, Baltasar Kormákur, Director of The Deep
For anyone living in Iceland in the early 1980s, the 1984 shipwreck of the fishing boat Breki that claimed the lives of five men is the stuff of legend—thanks mostly to it’s lone survivor, a man named Gulli, who spent four hours in forty-degree water until he washed ashore near a jagged cliff of volcanic rock, which he proceeded to scale, and then he hiked for two more hours in 27-degree weather until he found safety.
A Q&A With Girl Rising Director Richard E. Robbins About the Nine Incredible Young Women in his Groundbreaking Documentary
Academy Award nominated director Richard E. Robbins will be screening a portion of his latest project, the crucial documentary Girl Rising, at the Sundance Film Festival on Monday, January 21st. The film focuses on the story of nine girls from nine different countries born into unforgiving circumstances, with each girl’s story framed and written by a renowned author from her native country.
The film includes the story of Ruksana,
A Conversation With Broken City Director Allen Hughes
Allen Hughes has been making films with his twin brother, Albert, since they were 12-year- olds running around their house in Pomona, east of Los Angeles, with a video camera their mom had given them. The Hughes Brothers (as they are often credited) co-wrote and co-directed their first major feature, Menace II Society, when they were 20 years old.
Since then, the twins have made a number of gritty,
Amour’s Michael Haneke and International Directors Spotlighted at 10th Annual Golden Globes Foreign Film Symposium
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The much-anticipated 2013 awards season has finally arrived. As the world celebrates one of the most exciting years for film in recent memory, it’s clear 2012 gifted us some truly wondrous works of cinema. Among the standouts: Ben Affleck’s heralded Argo, the dreamy indie smash hit Beasts of the Southern Wild, the heart-warming Silver Linings Playbook, Spielberg’s historical biopic Lincoln with a predictably astounding performance by Daniel Day-Lewis,
Golden Globes Co-Hosts Tina Fey & Amy Poehler’s Best Live TV Moments
Even though the show hasn’t happened yet (and all due respect to the "most feared man in Hollywood," Ricky Gervais), we’re gonna go out on a limb and say that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were the best Golden Globes hosts in the show’s 70-year history (airing Sunday, 8ET/5PT on NBC). Not only did the dynamic duo display the hilarity, inventiveness, and chemistry of longtime friends who also happen to be comedic geniuses,
A Q&A With Greig Fraser, Cinematographer on Zero Dark Thirty
With Kathryn Bigelow’s extraordinary action thriller Zero Dark Thirty opening wide tomorrow across the country, viewers will have a chance to see this picture’s tale of the CIA’s decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden. One of the most talked about scenes of the year (arguably, of the new decade) is the spectacular, harrowing final raid on Bin Laden’s compound, all shot using night vision technology. Bigelow spoke about her “tremendous” cinematographer’s handling of that crucial set piece in a recent New York Times interview.
